1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatuses to combine an additional image with an original image.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a document is duplicated or printed from a personal computer, there is available a printing apparatus which prints a document by adding additional images such as company's logo, “CONFIDENTIAL” or “COPYING PROHIBITED”, to the document. An adding position of the additional image is usually designated by a user, and there is known a technology that detects a width of blank space at a designated position, and combines the images after changing or shifting the scale of the additional image so as to adjust it to the width of blank space (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Open to Public Inspection No. Tokkaihei 7-111583
In the above technology where a scale of the additional image is automatically changed and shifted to combine the additional image, when additional images are added to each page of a document having a plurality of pages, a condition of combining the additional image is changed according to the images of each page, and thereby, there is occurred a case where uniformity in the position or size of the stamp is lost in the entire document.
For example, in offices of patent attorneys in the U.S.A., legal documents such as court documents are prepared in three sets, one set for submitting to a court, one set for retaining in the attorney's office/law firm, and one set for a client, and as proof of having prepared these three sets of documents, a stamp (called Bates Stamp) having a logo of the attorney's office/law firm, date, and page number is affixed manually in a blank part of each page so that it does not overlap with an original images.
In the case of combining the stamp automatically by an apparatus, in order to reduce labor of affixing this stamp, if a scale of the stamp is changed and its position is shifted, the uniformity of the entire document is lost and there is occurred a problem that appearance of the document is not impressive.
The present invention is made in order to solve the above problem, and the object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus that combines an additional image in uniform size without overlapping with the original images for all pages of the document.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus that can combine the additional image in uniform size and in the same position without overlapping with the original image for all pages of the document.